


for control, grip

by brinicles



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, improvised bondage, inadvisable uses of sports equipment, no hockey sticks were harmed in the making of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:46:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinicles/pseuds/brinicles
Summary: Everything Leon does is foreign and fantastical. He comes back every fall and feels like something from another dimension all over again, something new, novel, a whole different hemisphere of frost boiled down into his blood, a frame that Connor can study endlessly: can watch and scrutinize and never really figure out, never get a handle on.This isn't that, though. This is just Leon being a little shit.
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid
Comments: 30
Kudos: 85





	for control, grip

Connor licks his lips uncomfortably.

They're not — dry, exactly. If they were he could ask for water, but that's not what he wants. He could probably use some anyway, sweat gelling his hair to his forehead, sticking his back to the sheets, but — that's not what he needs, that can wait. He clears his throat.

"Leon," he says.

"No." Leon doesn't even wait to hear it.

Connor grits his teeth, flexes his forearms. He tries again. "Drai?" he says.

"Yeah?" Leon's distracted. He's a faint shape in Connor's periphery over on the other hotel bed, stretched out comfortably in the dim golden light, leaning back on a pile of what's got to be every pillow in the entire room. The faint roar of the soccer pitch — football, football pitch — filters through the television speakers, turned down to a decibel level just below deafening, the remote neglected on the bed next to Leon's sweats-clad shin, and he doesn't make a move to pick it up. He's not even watching. Whatever's on his phone is obviously way more exciting.

"What time is it?"

Leon doesn't look at him, tapping out a text. "Nine something, I dunno." He could at least _check_.

"You know," Connor twists slightly, can't really get leverage, forces his shoulders to relax, casual — "We've got skate tomorrow."

"Yep."

"We should probably — "

"Shh," Leon says. Something's happening in the game, babble rising with the crowd noise.

"This game happened days ago. You already know the score," Connor points out.

"Hey," Leon warns, like _shut up._

"You're not even _watching."_

"Quiet."

"Hey, could you at least switch to — oh, fuck," Connor says, choked noise, fingers tightening against the sheets, pressing against the bare skin of his thigh.

The ties around his wrists don't have a lot of give. The stick they're lashed to barely flexes.

Leon snickers.

Connor stares at the ceiling, trying to calm his pounding heart. _Shallow breaths,_ he thinks. _Shallow._

\--

It had started early in the season this time.

Connor watching television sitting on the ground by the couch with Leon's thigh under his arm, Leon, smelling like boy and denim; Leon, resting his hand on Connor's head, fingers scratching absently through Connor's hair. Leon liked to fidget. Whatever else he was doing one-handed couldn't have been important; scrolling Instagram, probably. Connor liked to drape: contact, warm, soft, skin through fabric and muscle underneath.

He'd been half asleep when Leon had said, "Why are you sitting like that?"

Connor had blinked, frowned. "Like what?"

Leon had pulled his hand away. "Like that. You know you could get off the floor," Leon had said.

Connor had twisted to look dubiously behind him. "Why?"

Leon had made a face, eyes darting over him. "You're like a pretzel."

That was another way to say Connor should've been stretching his leg out before falling asleep.

Leon wasn't his physical therapist. "It's fine," Connor had said.

Leon had stared right at him, then slid to the other end of the couch and proceeded to ignore Connor the rest of the evening.

Connor wasn't a pushover, which is why it took three evenings over the course of one-and-a-half weeks to figure out a compromise he could pull off in a way that didn't bother Leon as much as it didn't bother Connor, and Connor could fall asleep stretched out on the couch with his head in Leon's lap, Leon petting his hair like he'd forgotten he wasn't meant to.

Then they kept doing it, and it wasn't weirder than anything else they did.

Nuge walked in on it a few times and didn't say anything. That wasn't all that telling, because you never really expected Nuge to say anything. Nobody else ever walked in on it, though, so. That was telling.

\--

It used to be that they'd go out to a pub for lunch with the team when they were rookies, and they'd spend it with their knees pressed together in the dark under the heavy fake-mahogany table, heads bent over something or other on Leon's phone, glass of cold water slippery with condensation under his fingers, chatter and staticky country music over the speakers like a haze insulating them from the rest of the world. On the road it'd be whatever: patio brunch after practice, hotel restaurant with hail hitting the glass, loud-noise late-evening golf-watching beers after an exhausting win. There'd be texts from parents, siblings, friends; all of that would be a distant warmth, reassuring and constant, somewhere else on the continent, or further away, for Leon. They used to leave together afterwards, before they stopped waiting, before they got their own cars at home.

 _Lovebirds,_ Nursey used to goad.

 _That's a little different where I grew up,_ Klef had offered.

 _Fuckbuddies,_ Looch had suggested. That wasn't really it either.

 _Practice partners,_ Larss had tried.

Connor used to wonder if he always just knew where Leon was on the ice because he spent so much time staring at him from the corner of his eye that it'd developed into an extra sense, something like that. But Leon always just knew where to be, and what Connor needed him to do. Maybe that made it easy.

\--

It took years to figure out, actually. A lot of pretty bad kissing — pressed against the boards at the empty rink, or way too early in the morning in the locker room showers, or way too late at night at one of their places, or just out back behind a club before a ride back to the hotel.

"You like being held down," Leon had said into his ear, smelling like club-floor body spray and sweat, thumbs lightly rubbing over the tendons in Connor's wrists after Connor got too handsy a few nights in a row.

"Yeah," Connor had said, tasting salt, alcohol fog. There was still music thrumming somewhere, night air biting, brick wall against his back. "Fuck yeah." Light-headed with it.

"I only have two hands," Leon had said, amused, breath ghosting across Connor's jaw, millimeters of distance. It was too dark to see anything at all.

Connor's dick ached against the denim between them. He shifted his hips where they were pressed against Leon's; it didn't help. "Yeah, well. Get creative," Connor had said.

\--

They'd surveyed the resistance bands afterwards the one time one of them had found them shoved into a duffel pocket — knotted shreds of brightly-colored plastic looking tangled, short and sad.

"Yeah, no," Connor had said after a moment, still slightly out of breath. "We're gonna be out of…"

"Yeah," Leon had agreed.

"Do we need to plan, or," Connor had trailed off.

"Huh," Leon had agreed.

\--

"Quick question," Nealer had asked nobody in particular while leaning against the wall across the hotel hall, because he'd been around long enough to know the equipment managers didn't just let the guys walk around with extra sticks shoved into their back pockets, and also because Nealer, unlike Nuge, wasn't good at letting things go. "Why does he have that?"

"Can't sleep without it," Kass had said brightly from outta nowhere, and slapped Connor on the back hard enough to knock him over.

Connor had shouldered Kass aside lightly. Kass had grinned, gap-toothed, and strode away. Leon, one room over, had been digging for his keycard, headphones on, seemingly oblivious. Connor'd have bet one hundred bucks nothing was playing on those headphones.

\--

"You're serious," Connor had said.

"Did I say you were done sucking on that thing?" Leon had shot back, digging through their stuff. "Or do you just want it in you cold and dry?"

After Leon had drawn out and wiped his hand off, he'd gone to fish out a roll of stick tape from who-knows-where. Connor had opened his mouth to protest, but he was still face-down and dizzy from being worked open on three of Leon's slicked-up fingers, up to the knuckles for ten agonizing minutes, so maybe drawing a blank at the thought wasn't totally unforgiveable.

"Well, I mean," Connor had said hoarsely after a moment.

 **"No,"** Leon had said, rolling his eyes and pointing. "And you get your mouth back on there or I'm turning the setting up before I put it in."

Connor had rolled his eyes too, but he'd gone back to sucking on the dildo.

It had gone in slick and warm, stretching him open just the right amount. The sound that it drew out of him when Leon worked the toy into him wasn't worth dwelling on. Leon had pried him open on it gently, steady against his body's tight resistance, and then eased the stick under his hips and strapped it in place. And then guided his wrists into place — and then his ankles — and then the bands.

Leon had done something on his phone, and the faint buzzing of the thing pressed just inside him — close, but not enough, not quite right — Leon had Connor then, knees spread, jaw tight, and a tiny slap of approval against the inside of his thigh before Leon climbed off to let him breathe.

And then Leon had flicked on the television.

\--

So: maybe they hadn't started early this season. Maybe they just hadn't stopped after the last.

It's gotten a little tougher to tell as the years have gone on.

\--

There's a chime on Leon's phone. A moment later, he sounds pleased: "Sens won."

The spark of instinctive satisfaction in Connor's stomach at that makes him try to remember the standings, but he can't even remember who Ottawa was playing. All it does when he twists his wrists against the stick is worsen the sensation of the vibrator under him. He sucks air through his teeth, blows it out, exhaling his way into focus. It must have been Vancouver. Probably.

Leon makes an incredibly offended sound. "Are you _getting off_ on that?"

 _"No,"_ Connor's voice cracks. "Fuck off." When Connor gets his breath back he's going to — nothing, he's going to nothing.

It's not actually late. Connor knows that, intellectually. They're not missing sleep for this. It just feels like it's been one million hours, and he's hard enough that he might die from it, that's all.

There's no relief to be had. When he relaxes his back, the toy stuffed inside him sends a jolt up his spine; his leg jerks, but there's nowhere for him to twist away. It's an itch all over and he can only sweat and shake through it, mind blank (finally), buzzing with want.

It feels like an eternity, but Connor must make a noise — more noise than he's been making, or maybe the game's finally getting boring, whatever, but Leon rolls over, slides off the blankets, kneels — crouches on the carpet between their beds, his chin resting on his folded arms, green eyes glinting, not two feet away. Connor turns his head and shuts his eyes, blinks them open, stares stubbornly at the ceiling.

"You look like you're about to lose it," Leon observes. He sounds incredibly amused.

Connor shakes his head, jaw clamped shut. He can't move any further than that, sweat breaking out on the back of his neck again. He can feel a prickle of heat that must be Leon's stare dance across the skin of his chest.

"No?"

"l," Connor rasps.

Leon waits expectantly.

"l just," Connor rasps again. "Can you?"

"Can I what?"

The vibration turns down to a slow hum, like Leon's taking pity on him and wants to let him speak for a second. It's barely better, because he's so worked up, so tight around the silicone that his body can't relax. It's a ratchet that only goes in one direction. The muscles in his forearms are burning, his abdomen tense, dick hot and messy against his skin.

"Just help me out," Connor finally forces out.

Leon hums like he's considering it.

"Please," Connor says.

Leon rocks back on his heels and pauses, leaning out of Connor's space, and just — no, he's not going to leave Connor like this — 

_"Hey._ Leon — touch me," Connor says. "Leon, _please,"_ he says, gracelessly, like a wheeze, a demand —

— and then Leon's moving, one long leg slung over him, weight on his ribs, a knee on the bedspread on either side of Connor's waist. His fingers wind the hair out of Connor's eyes, just so their gazes can meet.

He flutters his lashes, innocent, bland, his mouth quirked, soft. Connor feels it in his chest.

"Oh yeah?" Leon breathes. "What do I get out of it?"

Connor's used by now to the focused look Leon gets, the one he wears when he's on the ice and they're about to do something odd and fantastic, something quicksilver and bizarre, and he's not sure it's going to work, and he doesn't know it but Connor _does_ , he _knows_ , it'll _work_ , he doesn't wonder any more how these things happen. Connor grew up on a driveway somewhere in the dry summer farmlands an hour north of Toronto. He's been all over the continent for years, and he knows the history of every bright and dreary town, every rink they step in, printed in his mind like faded newspaper clippings and grainy tape, like liquor-soaked dusty record books, old and familiar and theirs to challenge, and — and everything Leon does is still foreign and fantastical to him. It always has been.

This isn't that, though. This is just Leon being a little shit. Wide-eyed and amused.

"What's that?" Leon is waiting. His hand is gentle on Connor's forehead. He tilts his head, ear hovering close. He could wait forever; maybe that's what this is about.

 _I dunno, anything. Just. I really want you,_ Connor thinks faintly, and — one of these days he'll say it, it'll just slip out by accident, he'll just blurt it out, he knows he will — _just. Just let me. Anything. If you want._ Leon's getting better at this and he wasn't bad to start with, and Connor's spread open, pinned deep, and he's never, ever going to get to come.

Connor doesn't know why he puts up with it, actually. He doesn't know why it makes his chest constrict: a slow, happy, searing feeling.

"Please," he manages instead. _"Leon — "_

"All right," Leon says, "Shush."

Leon's hand on his dick is enough to make him choke on air, just the feel of it, warm fingers on his cock, wet and hot and hard and aching after going so long untouched. Leon's other hand slides across Connor's belly just beneath, through the tacky wetness that's leaked all over his stomach and dribbled down his hips and into the crease between his thighs, fingertips dragging it into a sticky mess. He presses his palm down, tingling, when Connor tries to arch up, and Connor clamps his jaw shut on the noise that wants to escape.

"You want this?"

The breath fights its way up his throat. Anticipation, relief. _Yes._ "Yes."

Leon's thumb rubs careful over the slit at the head of his cock, teasing. Connor shudders. "Close?"

He's been close for an hour, sweat beading on his shoulders, strain in his arms and his thighs and his back, buzz of the vibrator down into his bones and melting him inside-out. "Fuck," Connor says, shaking out of his body. "Leo, _please."_

Leon grips and squeezes a promise: a vicious tight swipe of friction, pressure, sweet — and another — just to hear Connor gasp, just to watch his legs tremble with the effort of not fucking up into his hand, of not fucking down onto the vibrator like Connor wants to do, everything slow and measured, here like nowhere else. The contact makes his toes curl up, and Connor holds still, _almost_ still, he's good for this, he can do this. He _can_. He can do this.

Leon makes a sound, fond and warm.

"All right," he says, his thumb twitching lazily on Connor's cock, a constant tiny motion. He tightens his strokes as he does. "You can come."

Connor doesn't waste any time. He grinds down against the stick, finds the right spot, bucks up into Leon's hand and _comes,_ mouth falling open and moan crushed out of him, sparks behind his eyelids. Leon lifts his other hand from Connor's stomach, slick clinging hot and wet to it, and wraps it atop his other as he does, letting Connor rut against it. He works Connor through it, the stiff clench of his body like a string suddenly pulled taut, the spurt of liquid heat that spatters his chest as his dick pulses in Leon's hand, as he lets himself feel it, his muscles desperate, tight.

The aftershocks drag on until Connor has to remind himself to inhale, shuddering just a bit on the sheets as his body wears the tension out of itself.

Leon leaves him sticky and shaky and weak. Then he gets up: touch gentle on Connor's bare knee as he goes.

Leon loosens the ties at his ankles first, one at a time — careful to stretch his legs slowly back into position when they're free, letting his circulation catch up in his limbs after being bent for so long. Then he unties his wrists, briefly rubbing the circulation back into them, too.

He folds Connor's leg up with a firm hand under his knee and carefully slides the toy out. Connor winces just a bit at the sensation of it slipping out, and Leon pats his ankle apologetically as he maneuvers the stick out from under him and straightens up.

Leon inspects it up and down, rubs a speck from the gleam of the lettering. "Didn't break," he says, slightly impressed. He swats the flat of the blade lightly against Connor's thigh, dull _thwack_ and a sting. Connor jerks away, huffs a laugh.

Connor is blank and warm and almost asleep by the time Leon's done with the clean-up — _can't sleep without it,_ Kass had grinned, and Connor would really, he would kill, God he would die for his team — and there are two beds in his room and two beds in Leon's, and a lot of space in this hotel that must've gone unbooked, for it to end up like that. He watches through heavy eyelashes as Leon moves around.

"Hey," he says, once Leon is looking around for his own shoes. He can tell his voice is slurring, but he's drowsy enough to not care. "You wanna stay here?"

Leon stills and glances at him in surprise — he must have thought Connor had dozed off already. He does, sometimes, afterwards.

 _Please,_ Connor almost adds, and doesn't, because after saying it so many times tonight, he knows this isn't something he can just beg for and have.

Leon is silent for a long moment, and then Connor can feel his knuckles on his skin, the cool sheet settling higher over Connor's chest. A hand in his hair, soft, scratching a little behind his ear. It's going to be a no, Connor thinks. That's fine. It usually is. He can live with it.

"I'll be back," Leon says quietly, and that's something.

Connor nods, sleepily.

His eyes are already shut by the time the lights dim off.

\--

The bedside clock reads a green _3:06_ in the dark when he blinks awake blearily. There's a light tug to the covers somewhere behind him, soft and timid and trying hard not to be noticed, like the brief slide of knee pressed up against the back of Connor's leg is something accidental, like the familiar arm warm against Connor's side is something to be snatched back again, a mistake.

Connor thinks for a moment, then shuffles back into the curl of Leon's body and — fuck it — tosses Leon's arm over his middle. The thin t-shirt between them is enough, he figures, to stop them from waking up totally glued together in a couple of hours.

Leon makes a _pshf_ sound, kicks around a bit, wriggles faintly. But he settles.

Connor drifts off again to the sound of Leon's breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> "I've seen some of the craziest things with guys and their stick ... I've seen guys do just about anything, with their hockey stick." - [Connor McDavid | Mar 17, 2020](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-76ZfRJvBmc&feature=youtu.be&t=66)


End file.
